the last one home
by tFantasyFan
Summary: Your name is Rory Williams. It's not exactly and never was, but it always has been; and that sort of confusing conundrum could explain your life in a sentence.


_Also known as "Rory Williams: Life in Plastic is Not So Fantastic."_ _This is just a little something I've been slowly poking at for a few months, until I realized I can't think of anything else to add to it. Don't mind me._

* * *

Once upon a time, you died and turned into a Roman.

It was all very confusing and distracting, and you had a half-remembered lifetime in the future that sometimes felt like just a dream until it started feeling like the only reality that could have ever existed. The Doctor and Amy Pond and her tagalong nurse, who she was getting married to in the morning- a morning that she drew out for a while, that you drew out for a while, that still had a long, long time of being drawn out ahead of it. Amelia Pond who could walk through fire and swim the river Styx and remember you even when it got so you'd never been born in the first place, because Amy Pond was an unstoppable force of nature and a fairy tale come to life. You couldn't always imagine being able to imagine someone like her.

Of course, you couldn't have imagined shooting her, either. Or spending nearly two thousand years in your very own strange time and spacey rendition of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. If the bride ran off with the satyr before the wedding and the satyr came back to drag Orpheus along with them later. It's getting less and less often that you think of the Doctor as a satyr, really (you're especially okay with nobody knowing you ever made the comparison, because you'd hate to explain and you'd hate to see either of their faces if it came to it).

At least you have the consolation of being able to turn around on the way out of the proverbial underworld.

Be better if you could see her when you did.

* * *

"Do you ever actually sleep?"

"Sleep?" The Doctor ruffles up in his seat under the console, peers up through his goggles like an offended owl. Speaks with a shake of his head, flick of his wrist, mouth pulled down at the corners like he could taste the sound of the question and wants to wash it out. "_Sleep?_Boring question, that one, isn't it? No, not just boring, it's terrible, it's awful. Pick another."

"What- it's not a boring question, it's an important question!"

"Noooo, _wrong_, Rory! Ah, I like that. Wrong Rory Williams, you are, in my wibbly-wobbly space box getting married in the morning, every morning- I could take you to the planet of vests, vacation on the ring of- of _perfectly harmless_ space volcanoes! I could tell you about what this squidgy bit I'm fiddling with is for. Maybe, actually probably I couldn't, but I've got a guess. I could guess at you about all the squidgy bits that need fiddling with." The goggles come up, the hair is flicked back, and he stares, properly stares. Thoughtful, a little put out, ridiculously entertained, just the slightest bit superior. "And you ask me about me sleeping. _Ha!_Humans."

"Yeah, well. Fine ." And it's enough for a scandalized little huff, a stretch of silence that doesn't last long at all. Not even a little long, really, because it's still there, hovering, nagging. "...it's just that this is a ship. Your 'wibbly-wobbly' space box, I mean. It's still a ship."

Which is, apparently, slightly better than before. "_She_is a ship, yes. The best ship in the universe, my TARDIS, because she's mine and I can almost always find the swimming pool."

"Right. _She_... is a ship, and she's always going somewhere with you, because you're the pilot. Taking her places."

"Yes. Well no, not exactly, not really, It's all quite complicated and- and very sexy, much more than that."

One eyeroll. One expectant look.

"Oh, fine, if you have to make it so _easy_. I spin the knobs and push the buttons and tell her where I would like to go and see if we get there. Piloting. Lots of piloting... things."

"And aren't pilots supposed to sleep well so that they don't alwa-?"

"Sleep, again, right back to the sleep!" The squidgy bit flies off into the unknown, which seems not to be very concerning. "You are so... grown up. Much too young for growing up, it's no wonder Amy asked you along."

"Hey! Excuse me if I care whether or not the alien my _fiancee _has been running around with crashes us into a- a black hole."

"You don't crash into a black hole, Rory. Believe me, I've tried. No, stop that face, not while Amy was with me. Funny, though. Funny Rory. Oh, I like that one, too. Funny Rory, Human Rory. Did you know, your name goes well with a lot of words? Good name, Rory, really, I happen to love wordy names." He spins, claps his hands, looks at the ceiling.

Entirely the imaginary friend, entirely ridiculous, entirely not human even though he hasn't got tentacles or gills, even though it's so easy to forget sometimes. Entirely a madman. He huffs and comes to a stop when he gets no response. Crosses his arms and scuffs one shoe against the ground irritably. "Yes, I pilot, yes I sleep, but I don't sleep when you sleep, or when Amy sleeps, or as much as all you silly little things sleep and no, I don't_need _to sleep that much, and I wouldn't even if I had to because it's _boring!_ I have all the time in the universe, _I _can sleep whenever I _want_. And the TARDIS is just fine when I'm sleeping, thank you, because she's _brilliant_. Boring questions answered. Ask a better one."

"You're sure you're nine-hundred years old?"

"...almost sure."

A-ha. "It's no wonder she went with you."

"Yes, of course, because of running and space whales and rubbish apples with little smilies on them, and also because I asked her to. That's the important bit, asking, otherwise it's more of an abduction, and abductions are more rubbish than apples."

"Be a bit stereotypical, yeah."

"Fft. Films. I always ask, very politely, except for that time when I didn't, and, well- that wasn't my fault and I learned that none of my faces have ever liked being slapped. She was actually _getting _married that day, didn't even mean to bring her on. Think how much worse it could have been! I'm much better at it now, of course. Better timing."

"Twelve years is better timing for you?"

"Ah- I was right on time, running completely as planned. It was you lot that went and spent twelve years in my five minutes! And then another two when I stepped back out! Terribly inconsiderate."

"That's rubbish."

A twitch in the corners of his mouth, a shift of his expression not unlike an old building crumbling in from the edges. Not really a smile, not there for more than a second before it's carved back into excitement, but it's enough. Enough to know that he knows, that he can understand twelve linear years plus two more on 'five minutes', that he makes mistakes and has regrets, that he came back for Amy Who Waited. "It is, isn't it? Very rubbish."

And he can make it up with anywhere, anytime, he will if he can, and nearly get her killed and save her life and be an arrogant ass of a Raggedy Doctor who hadn't aged a day, whose face can break up and switch back over to manic, this pilot who doesn't pilot at all. The world-saver who really did come back when it had been five minutes for him, when he didn't have to at all, really.

Important. Important to Amy, important to alien civilizations, important to the world, more or less. (more more than less.)

"You could try Rio. You know, going there. Taking Amy there, I mean. Rio or space Rio or- wibbly-wobbly Rio, I don't know. She's just. Always wanted to go to Rio."

Compromise. Admittedly some sort of outreaching hand, some kind of stretch towards you're not quite sure yet, but he latches onto it. Doesn't even doubletake, doesn't hesitate, just takes it where it is.

"Rory Williams," he says warmly. Taps two fingers against the side of your head and grins. "Oh, I like you. I like you a lot."

… it really is no wonder she went with him.

(And you remember that falling expression later, are about to see something like it hover over you, can't forget that importance, and the fact that he's right there in trouble and you can do something to save the man who saves the world- _penny in the air_-

Somewhere, between the pain and the cold floor and telling Amy she's beautiful, you realize you wanted to impress him. Best of humanity, be the best of humanity, and you'd let him down enough today already.

Somehow, you don't die thinking how dangerous he's made you to yourself. You don't think that at all.)

* * *

Every so often, you talk to the box.

It's more than every so often, really, but you decide fairly early on that you won't say as much if anybody ever asks. Seems a bit funny to consider, after all, talking about talking to a girl locked in a box who can't really hear you.

The subjects go pretty far beyond events of the day, because a lot of days only consist of you staring at walls and- well, talking to it.

Her.

You talk about the year, if you know it, what you think is going on based on loose hearsay and history classes that get more and more distant- you talk about people and animals and growing up in Rome and growing up in Leadworth and everything you can think of you and Amy doing together with the Doctor and all the hassle that went into the wedding arrangements that aren't even any good now.

Oh, or were they really even made? It's all confusing.

You apologize a lot, too, even though Amy might be more likely to punch you on the shoulder and tell you to shut up.

You learn that you can't go hoarse.

* * *

The funny thing about time is that it doesn't fly by quickly like you thought it might, and you're a little disappointed in that. A lot more than a little, actually.

Being human, all that you remember of it (all that you always thought you remembered but really didn't, everything that's ever never happened), time has always been a tricky sort of thing. (Says the former time-traveling plastic Centurion who died but technically didn't because whoops, looks like he never even existed twice over.

Ha ha.

Pretty sure Amy would've thought it was funny.)

Back before Time Lords and flying police boxes, that awful stag party and Venice and cave floors and all those things that you saw, that you know or knew or know that you knew, things happened almost... in bursts. You could never remember every single day of your life (your childhood, nursing school, crossing the street three Tuesdays back, every time you wanted to kiss Amy and couldn't).

Your time, the time you kept, is more of a solid blur, all blended in with the memories of half-specific recalled days, spotted through with bright, burning moments of sudden clarity (all those "wow, is it Friday already"s and "can't believe the day got away from me like that"s) and the things you'll never forget. That first day that you ever looked at Amelia Pond (and she was oh, bright and you would follow her anywhere, wouldn't you), how you got a concussion trying to play baseball on your tenth birthday, your first kiss (god, the macarena of all things, you were always such an idiot). Time was like the sky used to look from Earth, all blue-black and simple-seeming at a first glance except for those _stars_-

You remember human time. Wobbly, blurry, bursts of human time, if you're really the Rory that saw those things at all (and you hate to think about the fact that you probably aren't, because you would hate to be anybody else).

By the end of the first week you realize that almost every moment can be one of those little stars now, twenty-four hours a day (and the day after that, and the day after that, nearly two thousand years of the day after that). Often enough during the stretches of nothing happening, time just drags onward, scrapes slowly through one minute and onto the next, and a tiny part of your mind is screaming at you after a while. Something, anything,_ happen_, put your hand through a wall, bash your head against the Pandorica until it splits or you forget yourself, scream until someone hears a mile away and you just want to do those things, sometimes so badly that it's amazing you remember there used to be life before and there'll be life after this.

Instead, you sit and you wait, tensed muscles and clenched fingers (and they're not real and you're not real and why can you even feel the way you feel, remember what you can remember) and it's for Amy (_Amy, Amy, Amy_).

Rory Williams, the Lone Centurion; possibly a bit mad but never gone far enough to stop waiting. Probably something to be proud of.

* * *

"So this is how you're doing it."

"What- doing what? I'm not doing anything."

"You're a terrible liar, remember I told you that?"

"I could be doing a lot of things, though."

"Oh, so you're not proposing."

"I... was... uh." A deflating sigh. "So much for pleasant surprises."

"Yeah, well. I don't mind that you can't lie to me. Keep up the good work."

"Thanks. Probably will."

"Any other surprises I should know about?"

"Ah, well, those guys are gonna play the macarena for you. I thought, you know, memories and everything. Might be a nice plan. And there _is_a ring in your cake."

"Ohh, not in the _cake_, I'd get frosting under my nails picking it out of there!"

"Which is why I had them put it in the cake, actually. Wanted to get a picture of your face."

"Could have chipped a tooth eating it, too. You're terrible at this." And maybe if she wasn't smiling in that particular way, wasn't just stalling, it might have come across as an honest opinion.

"Yeah, thought I might be. Yeah. Don't suppose you're really charmed by the effort?"

"Mm. Wasn't so bad until the frosting under my fingernails bit."

A hum, a silence. "Would you, though?"

"Would I what? Frosting fingernails?"

"No, not- uh- you know, I mean. The other thing. The... marrying me thing."

Hesitation. "Rory-"

"-oh. Oh. Right then. Okay."

"...it's complicated, Rory."

"Not to me."

"Well you're _you_, aren't you?"

Another pause, longer than the first. "You don't have to say yes."

"And what would you do if I didn't? Didn't... see that for us. Wedding rings and family Christmas cards and a house uphill. That's what you want, isn't it, it's why you're asking ."

"Well. Yeah. I've wanted to marry you since the first day we met."

"I kicked you in the shin the first time we met."

"Yeah. Because I was- staring at your hair, yeah. Maybe not marry you back then, strictly. But I loved you, even though you kicked me, and even though you didn't know I loved you, and. Uhm. You could set a ten year engagement, or tell me we're eloping tomorrow, or- say no, never talk about it again, and I'm still pretty sure I can say I'll love you until you're sick of me, and then I'd love you even after you told me you were sick of me. It's not like I'm going anywhere. I don't... I don't really know if I could. I never have."

She stares like she's never seen you before, and for all you know, maybe she hasn't. Didn't know, couldn't have expected, the sheer flexibility and willpower that comes from loving someone you can't have for ten years and then finally having them love you back. Compromise and patience and change, because she's Amelia Pond and probably has no idea she's always been worth the wait. "... okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

"... Okay what?"

* * *

You take up counting, at some point. The exact date is a bit hard to remember, seeing as no one ever exactly walks up to you and hands over a calendar.

(and it's one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four)

Roman armor, a sword, and a terrifying reputation that's about ninety percent exaggeration- but you're not going to correct anybody over it, really, because the fewer people you have to fight off, the easier it is to live with yourself for the next few decades. Seems like everybody after the Pandorica at this point is all right with fighting to the death.

Who knew it would ever be bad for the more practical things you wonder about?

(nine hundred ninety-nine trillion, nine-hundred ninety-nine billion, nine-hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine and ninety-nine hundredths and damn, you have no idea what goes after trillions.

There's never been a better use for the song about ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, really.)

* * *

Rome falls.

It's something you know was bound to happen. Always in all the history books, inevitably fated to be, all the lark about how nothing can last forever.

You have another life, had one, could have had- a better one. Rory Williams from Leadworth, just a nurse (you've forgotten it from time to time, over the years, had it come to the front of your thoughts out of nowhere, god, you're a _nurse_, what are you doing here?), happy with Amy.

Technically you're not really a Roman at all. Never were.

But you can't help feeling like the ground's gone out from under you somehow, when the empire's really, honestly done for.

You sit against the Pandorica and weep for it, sometimes, the last remaining thing that you'd really intimately understood. What you're supposed to do after, you're not entirely sure.

Everything changes. Everything dies. You knew that well enough already.

The only thing you can do is live through it anymore.


End file.
